‘Humanity Dick’ and Rev Arthur Broome – founding fathers of the RSPCA

Posted in Animals, Historical articles, History, Institutions on Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Click on any image for details about licensing for commercial or personal use.

This edited article about the RSPCA originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 718 published on 18 October 1975.

Richard Martin, picture, image, illustration

Richard Martin paraded a severely neglected donkey in court so that everyone could see proof of its owner’s cruelty, by Clive Uptton

When the world’s first animal welfare society was formed inside a London coffee house one summer’s evening in 1824, it was decided that the organisation’s first and most important task lay in the prevention of cruelty to animals.

Richard Martin, the flamboyant Irishman whose Animal Protection Act had been passed two years earlier, expressed the feelings of everyone present at the meeting when he stressed that the society should not exist primarily to prosecute offenders. Its main aim, he said, should be ‘to alter the moral feelings of the country’.

And to that end, committees were appointed to issue pamphlets, inspect markets, streets and slaughter houses. The society also appointed its first inspector whose job it was to prosecute people who offended against Martin’s Act.

Martin, of course, would act as an inspector everywhere he went, and often brought a prosecution under his own Act.

On one occasion he prosecuted a costermonger named Bill Burns for cruelty to a donkey. Like most magistrates dealing with offenders against Martin’s Act at that time, the ones present for this case seemed reluctant to act, and when it became obvious that despite the man’s obvious guilt, he would not be convicted, Martin left the building in despair, only to return minutes later to lead the donkey into the middle of the courtroom so that everyone could see the proof of the man’s guilt.

‘Humanity Dick’ presented a series of Bills to extend the protection to cats and dogs, to improve conditions in slaughter houses and to suppress cruel sports. But all of these were defeated. Martin lost his seat in the House of Commons and later died at Boulogne in 1834.

Then the Society’s founder, the Rev. Arthur Broome, was arrested and thrown in jail as a result of the society’s debts and only by great good fortune and strenuous efforts at fund raising was his release secured and the closure of the society prevented.

In 1835 a Bill to prevent cruelty to all animals, including cats and dogs was passed, and bear-baiting and cock fighting was made illegal.

Three years after Martin’s death, Broome died. But there remained others to take up the cause. In 1838 more inspectors were recruited so that the society could ensure that the recently-passed laws would be obeyed. Tragedy came to the society in the same year when two inspectors tried to prevent a cock fight and were attacked and beaten up. One of them was taken to hospital and later died.

In 1886 it was decided to set up a home for horses where animals rescued from cruelty or starvation could end their days in the peace and fresh air of country fields. Today, there are fifty-nine such homes where animals can be cared for by the Society’s workers.

As the organisation grew in strength and power, it encouraged the spread of animal movements abroad. Later in the century, the junior branch of the society was founded by Mrs Catherine Smithies, a friend of Lord Shaftesbury, one of the most humane and best-loved of all the great 19th century social reformers.

By 1875, fifty years after that fateful meeting of fighters against animal cruelty in a London coffee house, what had seemed the impossible dream of an obscure clergyman had become an institution with the royal patronage of Queen Victoria.

The year 1911 saw the most comprehensive piece of legislation against cruelty to animals. Hailed as the Animals’ Charter, and steered through the Commons by Sir George Greenwood, MP for Peterborough, the Animals Protection Act covered almost every imaginable form of ill-treatment and remains the basis for most of the Society’s prosecutions.

The R.S.P.C.A. has won countless victories since its foundation over one hundred and fifty years ago but there are many battles they have yet to win.

In 1973 the Society’s huge campaign to stop the export of live food animals finally achieved its aim. Impelled by public opinion, led by the R.S.P.C.A., Parliament voted to suspend the export of all live animals for food. Since then, the House of Commons has voted in favour of allowing the export of animals to recommence with the provision that stringent regulations are carried out to prevent any cruelty occurring.

Today, one of the most important issues which the Society is tackling is that of animal experimentation or vivisection. All through the 18th and 19th centuries such experiments had gone on but what was becoming increasingly questioned in the second half of the 19th century was how often they were of great use to man.

In 1876 the first and only Vivisection Act ever to become law in England was passed. It specified that no animal could be experimented on without an anaesthetic and that laboratories would be subject to government inspection. At the same time, however, special licences to be made exempt from the law’s requirements could be obtained.

This loop-hole was not nearly so serious at that time when only about 800 such experiments were being carried out. Today, nearly one hundred years later, with the Act unchanged, the annual total is about 5 million. And what is so appalling about that figure is that many of the experiments are carried out for commercial purposes, rather than in the interests of medical science, a matter of deep concern to the Society.

Apart from its primary role of preventing cruelty to animals, the Society also plays an important part in the rescue of animals in pain. Whether it is the caring for unfortunate victims of the world’s booming trade of animals as air freight, the rescue of sheep from flood disasters, ponies on snow-covered moors, or kittens caught up in trees, the Society is always ready to help.

It helps 200,000 sick, injured or ill-treated animals every year; finds new homes for 45,000 dogs and 28,000 cats, and cares for a million animals passing through London Airport.

Today, in our highly commercialised, fast-moving world where huge profits are made at the expense of cruelty to animals, the R.S.P.C.A. is perhaps more necessary than it has ever been before in its long and honourable history.

Comments are closed.